


Vindication

by seanchaidh



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-11-01
Updated: 1999-11-01
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seanchaidh/pseuds/seanchaidh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was the other Daniel Jackson doing when the world ended?  Missing scene for "There But For the Grace of God."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vindication

It was hot, but Daniel Jackson didn't care.

He didn't care for much lately. 

He didn't care for the fact that he was working as the junior assistant at a meaningless dig, working on somebody else's project. It was a job a grad school student could do, not a thirty-two year old two-time doctor. 

He didn't care for the fact that the man running the entire operation, Doctor H. William Short, was the only person who wanted anything to do with the young black-sheep archaeologist, and had taken him in mostly out of pity. 

He didn't care for the fact that his real skills in archaeology and ancient linguistics were mostly ignored out here. He was always being second-guessed, no one really willing to take his opinion without consulting with someone else. Other than Short, it seemed, who still seemed to consider him more a subordinate than a peer. All he was really needed for was to run the digsite and to oversee operations. 

He didn't particularly care for the way his life had gone, since that last lecture he'd given in Los Angeles. The one where he'd put his foot firmly in his mouth by answering a question when he damn well knew that he couldn't answer it. Who built the Pyramids? How would he know? That wasn't the purpose of his lecture and research. 

He also didn't really care for the fact that he'd given up the one possible chance for something meaningful. Hadn't Doctor Catherine Langford come up to ask for his help after that disastrous presentation? After everything she'd seen, with all those people walking out of the room, she still wanted his assistance. A chance to prove his theories, she'd said. 

But it meant working with the Air Force. 

Like the idiot he was, he turned her down. Rudely. Telling her that he'd rather do some rather anatomically impossible things than work with the Air Force. He'd been cranky, his day had gone from bad to horrific, and his bags were getting soaked outside the car while he was being offered what now seemed like the silver lining on that particular black cloud. 

Idiot! 

Instead of taking Langford's offer, he'd gone to the nearest pay phone, using some of the what little money he had left to call a friend in New York. Robert Rothman had helped him with his research while he was working on his dissertations, and they'd been rather good friends. Surely to God he'd be able to help him now, when his world seemed to be collapsing around him. 

Robert had come through, promising that he'd see what he could pull up. He also offered a place to stay if he were looking for somewhere to hang his hand for a while. An offer Daniel couldn't refuse. 

Hitchhiking across the country wasn't his idea of a wise move, but lacking the funds for either bus, car or plane, Daniel finally made his way to New York. A few odd jobs here and there as he stayed with Robert, until his friend came up with something. He'd always come up with something. Small expeditions here and there, not always to Egypt. Israel, Mesoamerica, Turkey, Syria, Jordan... These didn't last long, since Daniel always ended up having to leave due to conflicts resulting from his previous work being brought up. This latest one, Short's expedition, which had one paid position, and the doctor was willing to hire Daniel, regardless of his controversial research from seemingly bygone days. 

And here he was. In Egypt, a country whose past was dear to his heart, trying to rebuild his reputation. It would be slow, probably torturous. But he could do it. All he needed was patience. 

A lot of patience. 

Daniel sighed, standing up straight and stretching. He'd been up since the early hours, working on organizing the excavation. They were on the Giza plateau, several hundred feet away from the Pyramids. Not too far from those, Cairo's urban sprawl came to a halt over the funerary causeway of the Great Pyramid. It was a site he'd been to countless times, when he was a child tagging along with his parents. 

The focus of Short's expedition was about one of the hundreds of smaller mastaba tombs that dotted the area. These were the burials of the lesser elite of Egyptian society, in the tombs that had once been used by the Pharaohs of the First and Second Dynasty. Now, in the shadow of the Pyramids, the mastabas contained architects, lesser queens and assorted family members, and other notables. 

In particular, Short hoped to learn more about lesser members of the Pharaohs' courts. He'd selected two tombs for initial excavations and surveying, before focusing on only one. The other he'd save for another season, most likely the next year. 

"Beautiful day, Doctor Jackson!" Short called, coming from behind. In his early fifties, he was a lanky Englishman with thinning dark hair. He was wearing dark glasses against the bright morning sun, his clothes a little worn and faded from innumerable digs. 

"Good morning, Doctor Short." Daniel nodded along with his greeting. It never failed to make him smile when he saw the older man. Standing a good three or four inches over Daniel's head, Short was all too aware of the ironic nature of his name, and never failed to make the occasional joke about it. "Everything's going well. I've got some of the grad students surveying the first mastaba, while the second will be done this afternoon." 

"Good, good." Peering out at his project, Short looked satisfied with what he saw. "Excellent job, Daniel. I knew you'd make these excavations go smoothly! Your name is always immediately followed with comments on how well your sites are run. I'm glad to have you on my staff." 

Feeling a little sheepish, Daniel ducked his head in acknowledgment. His hair, longer than it normally should have been, fell past his glasses into his eyes. Damn, he'd have to get that cut, one of these days. He made the mental note. 

"We think we've got the dating estimated for the first one," Daniel continued. "We think it's either from the Fourth or Fifth Dynasty." 

"Ah, yes... I figured as much." The older man looked down at the notepad he was carrying. "I had my suspicions that it might be from the reign of Khentkawes, which is indeed late Dynasty Four. I'm glad that we seem to share the same opinion." 

From anyone else, that might have been an insult. Daniel bit his lip, glancing down at his notes then back at the work going on before them. He noticed that some of the locals that Short had hired as assistants weren't going the exact way he'd asked. He got their attention by calling to them, and in perfect Arabic, corrected them so they were going the proper way. 

"Amazing," Short said, shaking his head. "I never could wrap my tongue completely around that." He gave Daniel a tap on the shoulder. "Well, I'll go check out the area. Keep up the work, Doctor Jackson. I'll be around should you need anything." 

"Yes, Doctor Short. I'll see you later." 

Giving a sigh, Daniel walked over to the second mastaba, carefully circling it. It wasn't as large as others he'd seen in his career, but it was a good size nonetheless. Likely a moderately important person in the court, he noted. He wondered which mastaba Short would decide to excavate first. 

The sun was getting too bright. Reaching into his shirt pocket, Daniel pulled out his sunglasses, replacing his regular spectacles with the darker pair. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the lower level of light, before moving on in his inspection. 

Traffic must have been heavy in Cairo today. Daniel frowned, hearing the sounds of modern civilization coming from the city and invading the ancient site. How had he heard the country's capital described before? One huge mud-brick village with skyscrapers tossed in for decoration. He knew some archaeologists who refused to drive in Cairo whenever they came to visit the city. He had to admit that it was an experience, something that could make Los Angeles freeways or even the Autobahn seem like mundane drives. 

Whatever it was, it was loud. Construction, maybe? Whatever it was, it was annoying. Daniel shook his head, trying to block out the sound mentally by focusing on the task at hand. It failed as the sound grew in intensity. Something like a combination of tanks, airplanes and construction vehicles, mixed and amplified as one unique sound. 

The earth trembled. It was a slight vibration, causing the loose stones on the ground to tremble near Daniel's booted feet. He looked down, wondering if they were caught in an earthquake. Around him, the ancient monuments echoed the vibration, loose debris coming down from their walls in little cascades of mudbrick crumbs. 

"What the hell is that?" he heard someone shout from across the site. 

"Damnedest 'quake I've ever felt!" a second person said, much closer than the first. That voice he recognized as belonging to a grad student from UCLA. Someone pretty familiar with California's real mover and shakers. She continued when a minute had nearly passed. "I've never felt one last this long! It's too... stable!" 

Voices mingled, in English, Arabic, and another two or three languages. Whispers and shouts. Daniel hurried back to the central area, where most people had gathered having dropped whatever they were working on when the noise began. He sighed, knowing that when it was over, they'd have to start the surveying all over again. 

"Daniel!" Short waved him over, his expression nervous. "Tell me, what's this?" 

"What's what?" Daniel asked, frowning. He could see that the older man was holding a radio in his hand. He could hear more voices blaring through it, in hurried and slightly garbled Arabic. 

"Here!" The older man thrust the radio at him. "See if you can figure this out! It's a broadcast from the Egyptian army! I can't make out what they're saying!" 

"What? The Egyptian army? How --?" He was cut off as the radio was shoved right at his ear. With an irritated glance at Short, Daniel tried to make sense of the aborted and rushed words. "They're talking about something... I can't quite make it out. There's something in their air space?" 

"There!" One of the grad students pointed up at the sky, moments before the archaeologists were shrouded in shadows. 

Daniel looked up. His jaw fell down. 

Hovering in the bright blue sky above as it blocked the sun, was a ship. A very large, non-Earth ship. More specifically, it was shaped like the very Pyramids around them that were the silent sentinels of an era long past. It seemed to wait there, taking in the surrounding area like one would view the ground from an airplane. 

"What the bloody hell is that?" Short breathed. 

"It looks... Egyptian," someone said. 

"No way!" another voice commented. "That's an alien, man!" 

"Alien Egyptian, then," the original speaker said. 

Short looked down at his junior assistant, who was still staring in absolute shock. The radio he'd given Daniel was still being held in nearly slack fingers, threatening to tumble to the ground below. "It sounds vaguely like that research of yours that you were presenting in Los Angeles, Daniel. I don't remember you mentioning anything about spacecraft, however..." 

"Oh, my... God..." Daniel whispered, his blue eyes wide behind the dark lenses. The ship, it was beautiful. He could only imagine what it must have looked like in a darker sky. Lights shining from the hull, like an ornament of some kind. An Egyptian, extraterrestrial ornament. He'd heard about UFOs over the years, but hadn't given it much thought. Hell, he'd given it the same thought as people had given his own, more controversial, research. 

Were these the people, or beings, who had influenced the Ancient Egyptians? 

"I knew it!" 

"Daniel?" Short was frowning at him. 

"I knew it! I was right!" Daniel turned to him with a grin. "My theories! It's them! It's the people who gave the Egyptians their culture! They've come back!" 

"What?" Murmurs spread the ground as they looked at the man who stood there, positively beaming. 

"Cool. First contact! Should we wave?" somebody asked. 

"Nah! I want to see the aliens!" 

"I wonder what they look like?" 

Over the excited comments, the higher and shriller sound of aircraft could be heard. As the group watched, Egyptian fighters appeared, circling the alien craft. They were like tiny birds flying around a mountain, an apt enough description under the circumstances. 

"Whoa, look at that. _Independence Day_!" one of the male grad students said. 

"Shut up and watch," someone told him. 

Small objects emerged from the ship; tinier than the jets that circled the bulk. They added another high-pitched noise to the cacophony, making several people on the ground wince in pain as their ears were overwhelmed. Daniel could only watch in abject curiosity. 

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Short murmured. 

The words hadn't left his lips when the alien crafts opened fire on the slightly larger Egyptian fighters. Multiple bursts of flame appeared in the sky, perverted fireworks. The sound of the destruction thundered down toward the ground, dulling the observers' shouts. 

As though having whetted their appetite, Daniel watched in horror as the victorious ships spiraled down to the city below. He could see their shapes better. Crescent shaped ships, with what looked like feathered wings. Like vultures. They swept toward Cairo, and bright bursts of energy rained down upon the buildings. 

Around him, people screamed, trying to vacate the plateau to safer places. It was only a matter of time before the ships headed in their direction. Short cursed moments before taking off. Daniel, however, remained where was, too shocked to move. He just stared at the mother ship. 

Long moments later, the floating pyramid began to move, as though satisfied with the havoc and destruction being wrought below. Turning slightly in the slowly darkening sky, the huge ship began to descend toward Giza and its stone and mudbrick monuments. 

By that time, Daniel knew he had to be alone at the site. He felt like he couldn't move, in the way a deer likely was too terrified to budge when caught in an oncoming car's headlights. He stood, his eyes riveted to the metallic pyramid. 

What a sight he must have been. A small, insignificant figure in jeans and a plaid shirt, radio useless in one hand and a notebook in the other. He felt like he was under scrutiny, and then a voice seemed to come from above. Distorted by the distance, and maybe by something else, it boomed over the doomed city, both the capital and the ancient necropolis. It seemed to shake the monuments even more. 

Daniel couldn't understand it. Or could he? He heard words... or glimpses of words. It might have been Egyptian, if someone were speaking it as a living language. The strange voice aside, it sounded like a beautiful tongue, worthy of the exotic hieroglyphs that transmitted its vowel-less words through the millennia. 

The last three words thundered past him. A point being made, and if he just concentrated just enough... 

There. 

"We have returned." 

Who? Why? When had they left? How did they speak the language, was it theirs or a result of being near humans? Where had they come from? The questions that Daniel dealt with as a scholar of human history and languages screamed for answers. Somehow, he had the feeling that he wouldn't receive them. There was something about how the ship was there, and then that new sound... Something gathering energy, or momentum? 

"Oh, god..." Daniel still couldn't look away. He was staring at death in the face. A nameless death, staring back from the pages of time. "There but for the grace of God, go I..." 

A flash of light was the last he saw. 

*fin*


End file.
